This invention relates to a network management apparatus for remote controlling consumed electric energy and an energy saving function of a plurality of packet relay apparatuses and a plurality of servers, a system, an apparatus management method, an integrated circuit and a program.
Attempts have been increasingly made worldwide to save energy. Packet relay apparatuses operable with reduced consumed electric energy have been required, too. Various proposals have therefore been made, and have practically been put into application, to suppress energy consumption of the packet relay apparatuses.
For example, the following energy saving function is provided for the packet relay apparatuses. (1) When traffic requiring a high speed operation of a CPU (Central Processing Unit) of a switching module does not exist, consumed electric energy can be reduced by lowering the frequency of the CPU. (2) When a plurality of modules are prepared inside a packet relay apparatus and a part of them is operated for an operation system with the other for a standby system, the supply of the electric power to the standby system modules is suspended in the time zone in which the volume of important traffics is not much great. (3) The packet relay apparatuses are operated only in business hours and are allowed to sleep unconditionally in outside hours. (4) When the packet relay apparatus supplies the electric power to PoE standard telephones through a PoE (Power over Ethernet (Registered trademark)) line and wireless AP (Access Points), the supply of the power is delicately controlled. (5) Only when the Ethernet® line is connected to the plug socket of the Ethernet® line provided by the packet relay apparatus, the electric power is supplied to the plug socket and when the Ethernet® line is not connected, the power is not supplied to the plug socket. (6) When cooling operates sufficiently at the place of installation of the packet relay apparatus, the operation of a cooling fan is stopped. A large energy saving effect can be acquired lastly by delicately controlling the energy saving operations of (1), (2), (3) and (4).
When a plurality of packet relay apparatuses is installed at the same place, the energy saving function of these apparatuses is generally managed in most cases on the basis of a similar operation policy. In other words, similar setting is applied mostly to the energy saving function of the plurality of packet relay apparatuses. Therefore, the most appropriate operation method may be the one in which a network management apparatus is prepared instead of setting individually each packet relay apparatus and the plurality of relay apparatuses are collectively managed by the network management apparatus. It is easy by using the network management apparatus to operate a tool that can be set by GUI (Graphical User Interface) and to provide a schedule function. Thus, the operation load of the packet relay apparatuses can be drastically reduced.
The explanation given above holds true not only of the packet relay apparatus but also of a plurality of servers operating inside a data center. A server management system for managing a plurality of servers and an energy saving management system for managing a plurality of packet relay systems and servers have therefore become indispensable.
The technologies mentioned above are described in US2007/053360A1, Hino et al. (corresponding to JP-A-2007-97126) and JP-A-2002-142038.